When Generals Talk

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Executive producer Mark Skaggs fills us in on the next C&C title.

By Steve Polak

Although developed at EA's Irvine studio, Command & Conquer Generals is the most recent extension of Westwood's premier strategy franchise. With a pedigree that reaches from Red Alert 2 all the way back to Dune II, Westwood possesses one of the most recognizable and enjoyable series in real-time strategy gaming.

Soon there will be a new series under the Command & Conquer. Generals is coming together quite well as Steve Polak recently discovered. Steve took time out from his busy schedule of go-karting and dingo rustling to talk with executive producer Mark Skaggs.

Mark was kind enough to talk a bit about the game and address some of the criticisms that have been levelled at previous games in the C&C line.

A word of warning: Although we tried to Americanize Steve's brand of English, even the best editour can't catch every word a writre misspells.

IGNPC: So tell us about the basic premise behind Generals.

Mark Skaggs: The game is based in the modern world, or modern world plus one, as we are calling it and the game is about three asymmetrical sides. These are sides that are not mirrors of each other, but sides with different strengths and weaknesses.

IGNPC: Indeed. Can you tell us about them?

Mark Skaggs: The first side is the US, which packs lethal high tech hardware. The second side is the Chinese, they like massive armies inspired by propaganda and fire based weapons that do huge amounts of destruction. The third race is these sneaky low-tech guys from the Global Liberation Army.

IGNPC: Sounds good. How many missions will there be?

Mark Skaggs: There are twenty seven missions in story mode and you get to play all of the sides and there is one continuous story which takes place and involves all of the parties.

IGNPC: So the narrative path is different? More like Starcraft, eh?

Mark Skaggs: Yes. This is a little different from past C&Cs which told the same story from different viewpoints, this time around the one story takes you through until the end of the game controlling all of the sides.

IGNPC: How does the story get going?

Mark Skaggs: The first chapter starts off with China. China in the future is no longer run by hard-core communist overlords, but instead it is run by technocrats. These are guys who grew up being aware of the broader cultures and ideas that exist in the world. They grew up with MTV and the Internet and so they want to be a part of the world and are keen to try and get along on better terms with the rest of the world. These guys are really smart and more open to working with other nations, which means China is in the game. These guys realise they have to play along and stand up and be good guys and to be a respected superpower they have to clean up the problem of the GLA sneaking about in Asia.

IGNPC: So the GLA seek refuge elsewhere?

Mark Skaggs: Yes. The GLA get pushed about and end up in marginal countries, the countries we call the 'stans': Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan etc. With the Chinese having taken control of the situation in Asia the Americans then decide they will get involved too and so you get to play them next and then finally the game finishes with you controlling the GLA.

IGNPC: The previous C&C games have relied too heavily on scripting and this has meant it is easy to defeat the game when you work out what the scripting is doing and circumvent it; breaking the AI in the process. What have you guys done about this in Generals? Have you looked at the predictable enemy attacks and obvious scripting problems in the previous games?

Mark Skaggs: Let me hit that from two levels. The AI and scripting system and tool editor is completely different for this game. Previously we were always limited by what the editor could do for us. It was really hard to write scripts. It was hard to get soldiers to react. With the new system it is easier to write good missions. If you write a great script too you can export it or easily modify it and use it elsewhere, so the process is less laborious and should lead to, no I correct myself IS leading to, better scripts as we aren't getting bogged down by the process. The number of different AI conditions that we have implemented with the scripts is also significantly higher and we have more control over the sorts of conditions that will trigger a script and this is a great thing.

IGNPC: Sounds like welcome and overdue changes to the C&C system.

Mark Skaggs: Also when you look at AI we have looked at the classic problem of a guy standing around ignoring an attack at the back of his base when he should react. This one is a tougher call and I'll tell you the reason why. Lets say you have a guy standing in front of the base and you WANT him to stand there for whatever reason, now in this case him moving to intercept and attack would be a problem. You might want the AI to keep your guy at the front of the base because an attack on the rear is really a trick and you know that. In that situation having him react would be a problem. So it is a double edged sword, but we now have AI stances like defend, be aggressive and so on and these will help you to determine the level of awareness and initiative taking behaviour your troops indulge in. This will be the choice for the player to set this up and so hopefully players will find a happy balance.

IGNPC: What sorts of AI stances are you implementing?

Mark Skaggs: Attack, patrol, defend, seek and destroy as well as a few other we are experimenting with.

IGNPC: The degree to which players can control their troops and can easily overcome inept AI is a real issue for the C&C games, so we look forward to you changing this.

Mark Skaggs: Yes we are interested to change this and so we will look at it in more detail. We have the Zen of what we are doing and it will involve a better AI for sure. Also there is going to be something different that we will be doing with this which we haven't done in the past and that is beta testing. We look forward to throwing the game out to a million people worldwide as we are smart enough to know that balance is something which we can get help with. It makes us nervous, but it should be interesting.